White House talks energy as health care vote looms

At the Capitol, senators are deciding the fate of President Donald Trump’s biggest policy priority:
repealing Obamacare. But at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, it’s “Energy Week.”

While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tries to cobble together enough votes to pass a health care bill, Trump is slated to tout U.S. energy “dominance” at a pair of events at the White House and Energy Department with governors, tribal leaders and members of his Cabinet.

The disconnect between the message coming out of the White House and the news of the week has been a recurring theme as the Russia probe has escalated to encompass questions of whether the president himself may have tried to obstruct a federal inquiry into Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election.

“Infrastructure Week” collided with former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his abrupt firing. “Jobs Week” was interrupted by a shooting at a congressional baseball practice, a day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate. And last week’s focus on technology was overshadowed by Trump’s admission that he never taped conversations with Comey in the White House, despite suggesting on Twitter that he had.

June 5-9

Infrastructure Week

What the White House wanted you to see

At a White House event, Trump signed a document encouraging Congress to privatize air traffic control. He traveled to Ohio for a speech on waterways and rural America, discussed streamlining infrastructure permits at the White House with governors and mayors, and gave a speech at the Transportation Department touting his plan to fix the country’s aging roads and bridges.

Headlines at a glance

What dominated the headlines instead

Former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his May 9 firing, an event carried live on network TV and watched by more than 19 million people. The president tweeted throughout the week, criticizing his own Justice Department for rewriting the travel ban and taking a dig at the mayor of London in the wake of a terror attack that left eight people dead.

White House officials acknowledge privately that their policy messages haven’t been able to compete with the flood of news about the Russia investigation — in part, because it’s nearly impossible to keep the president himself on message. Trump has continued to blast out missives about the Russia “witch hunt” and his myriad frustrations, including ongoing challenges to his travel ban, distracting from other events at the White House. The president talks about the Russia investigation more than any other topic, White House aides and advisers said.

But Trump aides nevertheless say they see the policy-themed weeks as an essential part of a broader effort to ensure that the Trump administration communicates a more consistent public message — and to give off the impression to core Trump voters that the president is busy trying to do the things he promised during his campaign.

Asked for comment, White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom referred POLITICO to a previous statement in which she criticized the media for not covering Trump’s policy moves, adding that the president will “continue to lead and draw attention to the issues that working Americans actually care about.”

June 12-16

Workforce Development Week

What the White House wanted you to see

Trump traveled to Wisconsin and participated in a workforce development roundtable discussion at Waukesha County Technical College. Trump and his daughter Ivanka met with governors and CEOs throughout the week to discuss ways to better train workers to succeed in 21st century jobs. The president also signed an executive order to cut back the federal government’s role in creating and monitoring apprenticeship programs.

Headlines at a glance

What dominated the headlines instead

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee about his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. The following day, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was shot and gravely injured in an attack on a congressional baseball practice. In the aftermath of the shooting, Trump canceled a planned event about apprenticeships at the Labor Department.

Headlines at a glance

The president has scheduled rallies alongside events related to the White House’s chosen themes, including one last week in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — his first stop west of the Mississippi since winning the election in November. But the evening rally, during which Trump revisited his familiar themes about fake news and his surprise election victory, drowned out coverage of his afternoon stop at a community college to spotlight agricultural technology.

Organized by chief of staff Reince Priebus with the help of senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, the policy weeks were intended as a response to the president’s growing complaints about his press coverage and the attention the Russia revelations were receiving. The White House conceived of the themed weeks in early May. There was growing frustration in the White House that the president’s schedule seemed to be in a constant state of upheaval — with last-minute changes and little direction. The idea of the weekly themes, one senior official said, was to attempt to harness the president’s ability to connect “into something that actually helps us.”

By flooding the president’s schedule with wonky events, the White House has hoped to counter the narrative that the president isn’t getting anything done, as well as offer the press something else to talk about besides the Russia probe.

“We wanted to force the media to ignore stuff,” said one White House official.

June 19-23

Tech Week

What the White House wanted you to see

Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, held the first meeting of the administration’s American Technology Council, where the president called for “a sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology.” The meeting included Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and more than a dozen other top tech executives. Later in the week, Trump held another meeting focused on increasing investments in emerging technologies with leaders of wireless, drone and venture capital companies.

Headlines at a glance

What dominated the headlines instead

Senate Republicans hammered out language for their Obamacare replacement bill. The legislation was released publicly on Thursday, prompting speculation about whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can win the votes to pass the bill – one of Trump’s top priorities. After weeks of silence on the issue, Trump revealed on Twitter that he does not have recordings of his conversations with Comey

Headlines at a glance

White House aides began planning for Trump’s energy events last month, and people involved in the preparation said they couldn’t have anticipated that it would overlap with crucial talks about the health care bill.

And officials bristled at the notion that they’re ignoring the health care bill. “We’re just as focused on health care as we are on” energy, another White House official said.

Wednesday’s “Energy Week” event at the White House will focus on local and state energy issues. Maine Gov. Paul LePage and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts are expected to attend. Trump’s speech at the Energy Department on Thursday will touch on the importance of producing oil and natural gas in the United States, as well as the potential to expand U.S. energy exports. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will all participate in the Energy Department event, the White House said.

Energy is also expected be a major topic of discussion during the president’s Monday meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to a White House official.

But “Energy Week” isn’t expected to feature any major events outside of Washington, which could distract from the Senate health care debate. White House aides had been tentatively planning for Trump to deliver an energy speech at a liquefied natural gas facility in Louisiana this week. But the event was nixed because of a tropical storm that battered Louisiana’s coast, according to White House officials, who expect Trump to visit the facility at a later date.

June 26-30, 2017

Energy Week

What the White House wanted you to see

The White House is planning a week of energy-themed events, including an appearance by the president on Thursday at the Energy Department.

Past White Houses employed similar policy-focused strategies, with the goal of driving home the point that the president is keeping his head down and doing the work of the American people. During a series of damaging scandals, former President Bill Clinton filled his schedule with policy-related events.

“Our strategy was essentially a ‘Go local’ one. It was about taking the president’s message directly to the people in key localities and states, including areas where key members of Congress were from,” said George W. Bush administration press secretary Scott McClellan. “Part of it was designed to get around the national media filter, but it was all about building public support to get the president’s legislative priorities passed.”

But McClellan warned that the strategy “requires message discipline and strategic focus to be successful, neither of which we have seen much of from this White House.”

So far, the administration’s bid to construct an alternative reality divorced from the Russia investigations and the president’s uncertain legislative agenda hasn’t had much success. The administration has even faced ridicule for its look-over-here strategy.

The lack of coverage of the policy weeks also gives the White House a new attack line:
The media isn’t paying attention.

Conway has repeatedly criticized the press for not focusing enough on Trump’s policy initiatives. She complained in a television interview earlier this month about the media’s “obsession with covering everything he says on Twitter and very little what he does as president.”

But keeping the public and media’s attention on policy is also part of the White House’s job, strategists say.

“Policy weeks or theme weeks are a great way to focus the attention of everyone in the administration and beyond on a particularly critical challenge facing the nation,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. A president’s success in delivering that message to voters, he added, “depends on the administration, and the focus that the administration has on that issue.”